Human Trafficking : A Hidden Disease

I’ve chosen to cover this topic because now more than ever news specials are being broadcast and even though each story as similar as the next they’re very captivating. The statistics on this issue is overwhelming and it involves just about every type of criminal act known. It’s become an absolute phenomenon in the United States of America.

Human trafficking has been a controversial issue for many years. There are different types of trafficking, which helps makes it a widely diverse issue. In Thailand, traffickers rely on the poor desperate people of other countries as well as their own to fulfill their needs financially, physically, and emotionally. Thailand has various reasons why they use human trafficking; sex exploitation, forced labor, and obtaining their organs for an organ transplant. Sex exploitation has been used by mainly men for a long time. They choose both women and children to violate, sometimes even men. The prettier the woman is the more she is worth. All men, woman, and children could be forced into labor. This varies from what the owner wants from them. People can also choose to go and work for them because they think this is their only way of making money, but they usually do not see much of it. Finally, others purchase them just for their organs. There are very long waiting lists on some organs, by the time one comes about the person in need of the organ has already passed away. There are a number of steps and reasons that are involved in human trafficking. With all of these issues of; sex exploitations, and forced labor, and organ trafficking, the trafficked can become physically and mentally injured.

Human Trafficking is in America, it’s in backyard and most don’t even know it. Many Americans believe that this horrible action only takes place in countries such as China, Japan, India, and Ghana but no; it happens in the United States also. The definition of human trafficking is the “illegal practice of procuring or trading in human beings for the purpose of prostitution, forced labor, or other forms of exploitation” (dictionary.com). Slavery was abolished in 1865 in the 13th amendment in the constitution but it sad to say, it still exist. “60,000 people in America in November 2013 could safely be called modern day slaves” (Slavery isn’t a thing of the past). Today human trafficking is counted as immigrant workers who are smuggled into the country and forced to work under the threat of violence. And also men and women, forced to sell their bodies for sex and give all their money to their pimps (Slavery isn’t a thing of the past). Pimps are the ones who usually run the human trafficking business. Approximately75-80% of human trafficking is for sex (55 little known facts about human trafficking). Many believe that only adults are being worked but children and teens are too, matter of fact the average age is between12 and 14. The number of human trafficking in the United States will continue to increase because it is too difficult to find and prevent.

Each year about 17,500 individuals are brought into the United States and become victims of human trafficking. Every country has this problem and it has become the 3rd largest illegal industry worldwide.

Human trafficking are the illegal activity of people, usually for the purposes of obligatory workforce or commercial sexual abuse. In other words, it is also defined as a modern-day form of slavery involving the illegal occupation of persons for exploitation or sexual abuse. Human trafficking is a hidden crime as victims rarely try their best to seek help because of language problems, scared of the abuser and lack of law enforcement. Every year, millions of males, females, and youngsters are trafficked in many countries around the world, including the United States. It is estimated that human trafficking produces many for almost a billion dollar profit per year, and second only to drug trafficking as the most market profit form of international crime. Traffickers use force, scam, or intimidation to lure their victims and force them into workforce or commercial sexual abuse. The trafficker look for people who are susceptible for a variety of reasons, including mental or emotional liability, economic poverty, and lack of a social safety net, natural disasters, or political uncertainty. The trauma affected by the traffickers can be so great that many may not identify themselves as targets or ask for help, even in highly community surroundings.

Human trafficking is a very secretive act most of the time and most Americans are oblivious to the extent of trafficking situations because they are not informed. To help stop human trafficking, one needs to understand what it is. For starters, traffickers begin by forcing people to go somewhere with them and then manipulating them into forced labor or sex. Anybody can be a victim of human trafficking but children and women are victimized the most. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, fifty percent of trafficking victims are children, eighty percent are female, 70% of

Human trafficking brings in billions of dollars into the U.S and all around the world. “The prime motive for such outrageous abuse is simple: money. In this $12 billion global business just one woman trafficked into the industrialized world can net her captors an average $67,000 a year” (Baird 2007). The laws around human trafficking are not strict and vary depending on what country it is happening in. Human trafficking is not something that is strictly foreign, it is happening right in front of our faces, in our neighborhoods, and all around us.

What exactly is human trafficking? We have all heard of it, but what actually is it. It’s a modern form of slavery. It involves controlling a person through force, fraud, or coercion to exploit the victim for forced labor, sexual exploitation, or both. It strips victims of their freedom and violates our nation’s promise that every person in the U.S. is guaranteed basic human rights. This is a crime (Beccera). Sadly, the United States is widely regarded as a destination country for human trafficking. According to the federal reports, nearly 14,500 to 17,500 victims are trafficked in the United States annually. That doesn’t even include the number of victims that are trafficked WITHIN the United States. If you are looking for a defined definition of human trafficking, California legislatures states it as being “ALL acts involved in the recruitment, abduction, transport, harboring, transfer, sale or receipt of persons, within national or across international borders, through force, coercion, fraud or deception, to place persons in situations of slavery or slavery like conditions, forced labor or services, such as forced prostitution or sexual services, domestic servitude, bonded sweatshop labor, or other debt bondage.” (Beccera) This is a crime that needs to come to an end.

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, human trafficking is accounting for 2.4 million victims every single year. This is comparable to the African slave trade which was encompassing 5 to 6 million people annually. These figures are showing how both slavery and human trafficking were highly profitable. This is what helps to encourage recruitment. ("2.4 Million Human

The United States estimates that between 800,000 to four million men, women, and children are deceived, recruited, or transported from their homes and sold into slavery around the world each year. It is estimated that 700 U.S. citizens are victims of trafficking within the United States. Approximately 3000,000 children are at risk of being prostituted in the U.S. Within the last few years the demand of human trafficking has gone up severely. Over two million children are trafficked every year and are sold an average of 15 times each day.

Human trafficking can take many forms, as well as many victims. One form of trafficking is slavery. Slavery is having a worker who is unpaid and who works by force using coercion, fraud or threat of bodily harm. “According to the United Nations, there are between 27 and 30 million modern-day slaves in the world (Jesionka, “Human Trafficking: The Myths and the Realities”).” “By 1860, the nation’s black population had jumped from 400,000 to 4.4 million, of which 3.9 million were slaves.(Henry Louis Gates).” That means there are nearly ten times more slaves today than there were in the late 1800’s.

Many Americans remain ignorant of human trafficking within the United States, believing that this inhumane act only occurs in third-world countries. No one likes to believe that it can be happening in our own country let alone in some of our own states and cities. Society rarely takes the time to understand these women and what lead them into trafficking and what factors contributed to them staying in trafficking. This study seeks to voice the ability to raise awareness, enhance penalties for the traffickers/violator’s, and offer rehabilitation for the victims.

In 2007, the U.S. state Department reported, “600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders every year,” “1 million is the number of children exploited by the global commercial sex trade every year,” and “161 countries identified as affected by human trafficking” (Polaris Project, DoSomething.org).

There are an estimated 27 million adults and 13 million children around the world who are victims of human trafficking

Although there are more slaves today than ever before, these kinds of practice’s are not something new to the world. In the past, slavery was accepted as a part of one’s everyday life. Decades ago, people were mainly used as domestic servants or agricultural laborers. Today, jobs can be anywhere from making bricks to forced prostitution. Traffic, according to Merrian-Webster, is a verb that means to trade or barter. While trade in humans does not exactly mean movement, international definitions of human trafficking are evolving to help people understand this. In the world today, there are at least twenty-seven million slaves (Kuhl, 7). The world has a common assumption today that slavery is dead. However, the prevalence of human trafficking